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Fragments of Mi-8 helicopter that crashed in Karelia found at bottom of Lake Onega

A team of 95 search-and-rescue specialists, including 29 divers, is working at the site

MOSCOW, February 5. /TASS/. Rescuers have found at the bottom of Lake Onega in Karelia fragments of the emergencies ministry’s Mi-8 helicopter that crashed during a training flight on Sunday, the region’s head, Artur Parfenchikov, said.

"Rescuers found fragments of the Mi-8 helicopter at the bottom of Lake Onega. At around 3:00 p.m. Moscow time, a submersible robot started working at the crash site. It found the badly damaged helicopter’s hull at a depth of 42 meters," he wrote on the VKontakte social media site.

Work continues at the crash site, he specified.

Contact with the helicopter was lost overnight to February 5 while it was on a training flight over Lake Onega in Karelia. There were three crew members on board. Its wreckage was found at a distance of 11 kilometers from the shore. The depth of Lake Onega there is 40 to 50 meters. A team of 95 search-and-rescue specialists, including 29 divers, is working at the site.

According to the Ministry for Emergency Situations, the helicopter was operated by an experienced crew with thousands of hours of flight time under their belt. A criminal case has been opened. Investigators will consider a number of causes for the helicopter crash, including pilot error, weather conditions and equipment malfunction. Operative services told TASS that icing of the helicopter may have caused its crash, suggesting that there was little time to react, given that the crew did not report any problems on board.

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